Jeff Emanuel pointed this out right after the Palin pick. Now that both campaigns have had some time to settle, rework websites, etc., I thought it would be worth re-examining how the campaigns are treating the Veep picks.

It looks very much like Barack Obama is ashamed of or embarrassed by Joe Biden.

Just look at the Obama website compared to the McCain website.

On the Obama website, there is the Obama Blog, Barack TV, Obama News, Obama Events, Obama Maps, the Obama Store, and even Obama Everywhere, like he really is the messiah. The Obama Store’s front page has zero Joe Biden stuff for sale. In fact, the Obama sign for sale on the front page is the old Obama ’08 sign.

The campaign is still named Obama for America. At the time of this writing, if you searched for Joe Biden’s name on the front page, you’d find it four times, excluding the masthead, which does have the new logo. Those four occasions would be listed under “other events” as opposed to the main “Obama Events.”

Even in the masthead, Biden is placed behind Obama and smaller.

Look at the McCain site in contrast. The campaign has officially changed its name to “McCain-Palin 2008” now. The McCain-Palin logo is visually clear and all over the front page. Palin photos appear multiple times on the front page. Taking into account the different site layouts, if you scroll through the McCain site, Pail gets much better billing than Biden does on the Obama site.

in the masthead, Palin is photoshopped behind McCain, but close to him and the same size.

Likewise, emails from the Obama campaign rarely come with a mention of Biden. Emails from the McCain campaign always have the McCain-Palin logo.

I said, when Biden was announced, he would just be constitutionally required window dressing. But I really am amazed by how little the Obama campaign has done to bring Biden in to the fold.

Are they ashamed or embarrassed by Biden? Or is Obama’s ego just so frail that he can’t bare to share the limelight?